


Out of this world

by Shaish



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: CACW, Civil War, Gen, Hope, M/M, Mid credit scene add on, Spoilers, Spoilers for the mid credit scene, hopeful, spoilers if you haven't seen the movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6706378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaish/pseuds/Shaish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you haven't seen the movie yet, don't read this. Contains spoilers for the mid-credit scene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of this world

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't seen the movie yet, but I saw some horrific clips last night along with the mid credit scene and I had to deal somehow.

“ _Do you remember them?”_

_“I remember everyone._ ”

 

His fingers barely twitch and he curls them, lets the memory shatter his mind for five excruciating seconds before he puts it in the back with the rest, footsteps pulling him from his reverie, or contemplation. Does it really matter which, anymore.

“Are you sure about this?”

Steve doesn’t want to let go. Steve’s never been good at letting go, if it doesn’t suit him. He can remember that now.

“I can’t trust my own mind,” Bucky tells him, because he is Bucky. Maybe not the rest of the names that are as old as he is, but he is that. He watches Steve, makes himself smile briefly, achingly. “So until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head, I think going back under is the best thing.” Looks at Steve only the barest hint of pointedly. He’s not trying to hurt. There’s been enough of that, for both of them. “For everybody.”

Steve nods slowly, drops his eyes. He hates it, Bucky can tell now, _knows_ , but Steve accepts the decision almost gracefully, delicately. It makes him ache, deeply, almost as deep as all the rest.

“These hands…” Bucky trails off, looks down at the one he has left, slowly curls and uncurls his fingers. The lost weight of the other is a mixed sensation, mixed feeling, but he feels lighter without it in more ways than he can name. “They’ve done enough.” _There’s so much blood_ , he doesn’t say. Steve knows. Steve _stayed_ , in spite of it.

That makes them both ache, too.

Steve’s hand enters his vision, slow enough for him to stop it.

He doesn’t.

Steve’s long fingers, artist fingers, curl gently, _lovingly_ around his, keeps them safe. He is safe with Steve, even when he’s not.

It hurts.

“I know,” Steve says quietly, just for them, among the technicians working several feet away, prepping their instruments, their tools. It’s oddly quiet, no metal clanging pointedly in the silence every once in a while to remind him, to keep him in check. It helps.

Bucky can’t tell if Steve means the blood or the hurt.

He looks back up.

Steve’s eyes are warm and old, young and tired and alive.

Oh. Both.

Steve’s fingers gently squeeze his. He squeezes back.

“You know, I…” Steve trails off this time, still quiet, still just for them.

The technicians live in the background, miles away and feet apart.

He squeezes Steve’s hand tighter, eyes trapped in each other. Steve’s widen, just slightly, and then relax again and somehow, impossibly, go softer.

“I know,” Bucky replies, almost a whisper. He swallows. “Me too.”

Steve steps forward, just the once, body curling and bending even more towards him like a weighted willow. Bucky will do his best not to break and snap him. He’s caused Steve enough pain. He’s causing him more with this, already.

Bucky shifts their hands like a rubik’s cube, locks their fingers together like a pulled trigger. They were made for each other, outside and in. Not in all ways, and not even in all the romantic ones, but in all the important ones. _Steve is his_ , he realizes, really, truly realizes, _and he is Steve’s_.

That’s the way it’s always been.

They stay that way until a technician comes over and gently says they’re ready when he is, and he wants to linger, but so much of him is tired and weary.

There is no kiss _goodbye_ or a sure, ‘ _See you later_ ’, but there is a hug that lasts miles and decades and minutes, bodies not quite fitting together but trying to become one person anyway, inside and out, before they eventually pull away again and become two.

His last sight is not of Steve but of a white ceiling in a lab, but his body is warm where Steve touched him, where they melded together for a minute in a new century, and it is more than enough.

-

Steve rests his hand on the frozen glass, stares at Bucky. He looks like he’s sleeping. Some part of his mind whispers, wonders, _Did he look like that after he fell?_ _Before they came for him. Before they took him and tore him up like shredded paper, like boulders sledge hammered apart and then reformed into a statue no one could recognize_.

Eventually, he leaves, leaving a trail of wet finger marks slanting down like claws before they frost over again and disappear, burying his mark under the ice.

-

Wakanda, when Steve has the time to really look at it, is beautiful, but mostly all he sees is Bucky. He’ll have to truly appreciate it before he goes. He owes at least that much to T’challa (he owes _more, so much more_ ). The only thing that makes it hard is he wishes Bucky was standing here next to him again, sharing in the world with him.

Steve turns after a while and walks down the wide curving hall with T’challa, walks among kings and shares in the silence of companionship.

Someday, Bucky will share the world with him. Bucky’s safe again, and that’s all Steve can really hope for.

( _For now_ ).


End file.
